Evening Dialogues
by AsianScaper
Summary: A little insight on J/C and Janeway's thoughts. A small conversation can mean so many things.


**Title:** _Evening Dialogues_   
**Author:** AsianScaper   
**Disclaimer:** Star Trek: Voyager and its characters belong to Paramount. Fortunately, the story belongs to me.   
**Rating:** G   
**Category:** General/Romance   
**Feedback:** Friends, enemies: Send your comments or constructive criticism to asianscaper@edsamail.com.ph   
**Summary:** A little insight on J/C and Janeway's thoughts. A small conversation can mean so many things.   
**Spoilers:** None   
**Archiving:** Anywhere, just tell me where it's at please.   
**Dedication:** To all the J/C shippers. For Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, and the rest of the wonderful cast who made this show possible. Thank you.   
**Author's Note:** I don't know if you'll be able to appreciate this but if you have any comments, I'd be grateful for the feedback. 

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Along the continuity of sempiternity, fate savored the sight of golden tresses along the billowing gowns of pride. It was a pride that had, a very long time ago, accompanied the steps of the arcing pilgrimage of daystars to the temples of zeniths and clouds. 

Dusk was not what it used to be; light did not fade like it did in regions of sorrow, nor did it wash its face against the blunt darkness of a bottomless chasm, flickering with gems. It was filled with howling creatures of daytime as if their laments were for light's passing loss. There were no sunsets to speak of, or sunrises to endure along the vast expanse of golden beaches, or even tranquil mountains to cradle the gigantic stars spewing the gentle river of life. Perhaps, these were the many things they missed. 

To Kathryn, it left the pang of aching wounds and irreverent monstrosities known only as unfinished business. 

Shaking her head and running her fingers through her auburn her, she took another long, melancholic sip at her coffee. The black liquid did nothing to allay the burning desire for true air that sowed smells of effervescence; nor did it quash the longing for the warmth of a true sun, the only sun, which dipped its fingers in the cup of loyalty and brought it delicately to her lips. 

How far was the taste of home! She pained herself through sleepless nights in recollections such as these, opening the book of life and awkwardly writing on its pages without the sure penmanship of stepping upon home soil. It left her sequestered against the window of passing stars. 

Warp space seemed like the yellow brick road, though spears of light were not akin to yellow bricks. Such a long road it was and ever will be. 

_Follow the yellow brick road…follow the yellow brick road…_

"Damn it," she muttered coarsely. 

She was sitting, alone, in the dark bowers of her quarters, where the moaning of the ship could be heard through a laborious journey across the black boundaries of space. 

It had been the middle of the Beta Shift when Kathryn rose from her bed. Her sleep had been interrupted by images of immense fields that undulated to the wind's song. They bothered her more than they comforted her. 

Was she so far removed from her Earth that it now stretched with cogent palms, its images trying to soothe her thoughts like a balm yet never quite succeeding? The answer was invariably yes and she knew why. She missed her emerald planet. 

It was one of those nights that reminiscing bent over to brush its lips upon her forehead, carefully lifting the veil dividing her from the well-kept secrets of her anamnesis. The dam built there broke open with the strength of every tear, every peal of laughter, every plaint from the rebel's hoarse throat. 

Like the roulette in the hands of a child, there was no control over the liquid beads of grief, over the strings of fire from joy. She burned her hands in the process, washed with relief and a throb that reminded her of her heart. 

The gem that adorned the visions in the mind, the paintings, the momentary photographs of clouds, brown earth, and water. All taken by the sculptor's brush and encrusted in the tombstone of her aspirations. She thirsted for images, for realities, for things that she might never reach, in seventy-five years. It was abandoning her flesh to the desert, her very being blighted with drought, her soul beset by famine. 

Oh, yes. She was very far removed from the rivers of her home, from the fields of a mother who knew every ear of corn, every brush of wheat that kissed the surface of the earth. Kathryn had devoured such images, drank from that pool of memories, and moved from stillness to act by the inspiration it gave. The inspiration still sustained the empty bottle of hope where even the drops of pain fell unhindered. The cosmos provided her with ample messengers through every remote star, which enhanced the wonders of her windows, in that hope that maybe, just maybe, one of those pendulant angels would hold the trumpet of Sol III. 

Here she was, receiving the scrolls of such messengers through every twinkle in warp space, reading the messages with a smile on her lips; a bending that required the mirth of serenity and the sadness in separation. She was not one to dwell in suffering for she had the suffering of others to mend with the tools of her heart, of her mind. 

A whole crew hid their sorrow through her own ability to push it away. Example provided copious crops to harvest in a small ship. Yet in the confines of her own room, within the susurrations of her mind, the beast of pain hid from the voice of her happiness. She had grown accustomed to avoiding ambuscades that even her mind would not console itself to her presence. 

Yet the crew she cradled in every embrace, in every touch of their shoulders chased such hounds away. There was one such night that reminded her not of earth, but of her home, this home. The home of the passing bundles of life. The home that bawled with the great noise of its nacelles. The home that sweated with the toil of its crew and smiled to its joy, cried to its agony. Voyager. 

A memory of a mess hall…of hours beyond that of light and before it. The smell of food, of nourishment beyond the grave. 

They were conversations of the mind, speaking of the vast foyers of the heart and the great pillars of the intrepid human soul. There was the mimicry of dialogue, the impressions of time through every note that rolled off a person's tongue. 

Kathryn squinted at the memory, at the knowledge behind those deep black eyes. Her mind had wandered and even the echoes of Chakotay's voice filled the empty valves of curiosity as she sauntered about the accolades of loneliness. 

That had been a meeting requiring only silence, a soundlessness that caressed every strand of hair, every white cheek in pleasure and defeat. Even then, the feathers of his happiness tickled the thin lips of her joy and filled the lungs of merriment with the air that sheltered men from amenities of the flesh. Was that so hard to believe? 

No. If such voices belonged only to angels then men fell from the great machinery of immortality and knew every rumble of potential from his intellect. An intellect, which, faulty as it was, grew to knowledge fed from the hand of God and widened the chasm between him and animals. 

_"Chakotay to Captain Janeway."_

Blinking in surprise, she carefully tapped her communicator, an action of submission and of trust even if it meant the birth of connection within the confines of technology. 

"What is it Chakotay?" 

_"Captain, I know it's late but I our helmsman called to tell me of a planet just a few light-years away. He claims that it is uninhabited. It has, and I quote, 'Such beautiful weather'. Are you interested?"_

"Of course, Commander. I want a full scan on that planet and an away team before we start sending people down to enjoy themselves. God knows what wildlife we'll be encountering. I don't want to die inside a lion's stomach." Kathryn's verve melted into a stream to fill her empty ravine as she heard her Commander chuckle with that gentle rumble of a man who knew authority, yet cherished it. "And Chakotay, get some sleep." 

_"So should you, Kathryn."_

She heard the caress in his voice, the touch of laughter, the blare of gaiety in the swirling colors of spirited blackness within his eyes. Then, there was the sound of farewell, which spoke of hope in blindness. 

Such sight was not necessary for already, the sculpture of his listless smile, a smile that bent with the charming curiosity of amicable dimples, had been chiseled into her moving memory to instill upon it a certain amount of constancy. She knew she would not forget this man. The anchor had been too deeply sowed within the ground of her emotion. 

"You could have waited until tomorrow to tell me," she berated quietly. 

_"I knew you were awake and decided to divert you from your musings. I'm sorry, Captain. It won't happen again."_ He paused, considering his next words. _"What are you thinking of, Kathryn?"_

Laughing outright, she was afraid to tell him. Because of her strangled courage, she said, "Nothing that concerns you." 

_"Well then,"_ he replied, worry creasing his voice. _"If you need anything, I'm but a call away. Good night, Captain. Chakotay out."_

"Good night, Chakotay," she said, knowing that he would not hear her with his ears, yet that he would eventually, within the confines of that part in him which knew her so well. 

Of this night, dancing through every caper with the voices of her home as she held her chin high to point to the star where her emerald orb lay, this particular utterance was all she needed. Conversation, perhaps, were the only anchors upon which she relied upon. 

All this, a manifestation of her humanity; a humanity cradled by her Earth, which remained the only storybook she read over and over, in the lamplight of her desire. Such was the same for the crew. Such was the same for the Angry Warrior who knew the symbols of her ever changing stars and knew the destination of her fiery comets. 

"That sweet man," she said, self-deprecatingly. 

_Follow the yellow brick road…follow the yellow brick road…_

The wizard held the wand yet lacked the magic. It was the magic of the heart. 

And silently, as if she stood before the tabernacle of revelations, she gave the wizard his magic, and blunted the warrior's sword. If such was possible, then yes, man descends from the mountainous steppes of Heaven and condescends to the hope in charity, the faith in hope. 

She smiled. The lore from lips of temperament and wisdom provided a brief cradlesong to accompany her quest for the world of dreams. 

Her eyes skimmed along the plight of the blind. It was welcome to her, and she slept. 

__________________ 

**-The End-**


End file.
